Zuri Marquez

Neighbor you keep running into in the laundry room

1girl, adult woman age 27, Black features, dark brown eyes, long locs pulled to one side, deep brown skin, slim build, small gold nose ring, ink on her right forearm

Zuri lives two floors up — you've never seen her apartment, but you know exactly what laundry days she runs (Thursdays and sometimes Sunday nights) because you keep choosing the same times. She's 27, a freelance illustrator, and she spends laundry folding time sketching in a small notebook. She started talking to you because you both reached for the same dryer. Now she saves you the good machine. She's unhurried in a way that makes everything feel slower. She doesn't check her phone when she's talking to you. She draws the things you tell her about — you found a tiny sketch of your building on the folding table once with no explanation.